Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonathansizz | Hacker News Reader

It's an interesting time. Android 5.1 is easily the strongest version of Android that Google have ever produced; in terms of design, functionality and performance the bar has been raised several notches. The big problem that remains is getting it onto devices is a timely manner. This also reared its head on several devices that received 5.0 early, only to have fairly serious bugs that were not rectified for weeks or months until the next update finally rolled out.

Android Wear is the most complete smartwatch OS, backed up by a solid selection of hardware. Chrome OS continues to show strong growth, with Chromebooks and Chromecasts selling very well. Will we see more integration between Chrome and Android? Will Google try to directly interfere with third-party app stores and launchers?

View on HN

> The big problem that remains is getting it onto devices is a timely manner.

This. I own devices from a manufacturer that supposedly uses close to vanilla Android to roll out quick updates. My Moto X 2013 is still rocking 4.4.4, despite the fact that it was just over a year old when Lollipop came out.

My Moto X 2014 (also pure) has Lollipop, but the bugfix releases (5.0.1 and 5.0.2) were never rolled out. The rumor is that 5.1 is now rolling out in Brazil (I am in the EU) and one US carrier. It's been 2.5 months since 5.1 was released.

No surprise that my next phone will either be a Nexus or an iPhone (I used an iPhone 3G and then 4 for years, and always had prompt updates).

The counterargument is always: the user does not care about updates. But I assume that people who drop 500 Euro on a smartphone care more than those who buy low-end.

> the user does not care about updates.

The Manufacturer does not care about updates. It nets them no cash flows. Delay the updates, force people to buy new phones for new (software) features.

Now if Apple did that it'd be called planned obsolescence and every tech blog would be breathlessly bleating about it.

Apple controls everything in their walled garden.

Android controls next to nothing - so you can pass the buck pretty well.

Supposedly the problem with the Moto X is the specialty chip they use for gestures and such. Which is interesting and troubling, because that kind of specialty hardware seems like the #1 place an OEM can add real value & differentiation to their product line, but adds obvious obstacles to rapid OS updates.

> Will Google try to directly interfere with third-party app stores and launchers?

They have already in a subtle way. Many apps depend on Google Play Services to function (including TextSecure). It's surprisingly difficult to find a list of good apps that don't depend on Google Play Store being installed.

As it stands, Android is almost unusable for the average user without the stock app store installed

This is kind of true. Though you're the first person I've heard say it without complaining that GPS isn't in AOSP.

Amazon has done a pretty decent job keeping up their version, as far as I know - and they try to maintain API compatibility.

This could be solved by some good third party architecturing a solution, but overall it's Google dominating by providing the better developer tools and ecosystem.

A third party solution would have to provide some compelling benefit to get app developers to add support or switch. Otherwise it's not worth the time and effort to switch just to benefit the tiny amount of users who don't have GPS.

AOSP has GPS APIs. Maybe you're referring to the combined wifi/cell/gps location API in Play Services. It's built on top of the AOSP location API. Anyone can write a similar library.

I am, yes. And while anyone can always write a similar library, it increases the cost of switching out of the Google ecosystem.

Provide a compelling alternative and you'll see developers catering to that audience. As it stands, the Play Store is the de facto target because it has the most users and the best developer experience. Amazon provides a very small fraction of users and revenue, other platforms even less.

But who wants a phone that is going to junk out on every second OS version update?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com